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Artifice
This guide is designed to allow players to create custom magical items using their own ingenuity and resources. The rules outlined here draw from several resources, including Xanathar's Guide to Everything by WOTC and Crafting Magic Items: A Guide to Artifice v1.0 by Jeff Venado and Lowell Wahtera. The guide aims to speed up magical item crafting for players while keeping it relatively logical, so Crafting Requirements To craft a magical item, there are several preliminary steps required: * The artificer must know how to create the item, or have a formula or blueprint to work from * They must have proficiency in the tools required * The raw base item (or the materials to craft it) must be gathered * Any exotic materials required for the enchantment must be gathered * The appropriate amount of residuum dust must be gathered * The artificer must be able to access the appropriate facilities These things must be accounted for before the artificer can begin the crafting process, which has its own set of rules. Each step of these preliminaries will be examined below. Ingenuity and Formulas The invention of magical items is a complex process, with much trial and error and a great deal of knowledge required. It is not easy to invent new ones, or to copy an existing enchantment without intimate knowledge of how it was created. Most artificers have books of formulas and blueprints to work from for such things. If an artificer has a formula or blueprint of the item they wish to create, they need not worry further about this step. Items which only confer a bonus to AC or attack and damage rolls (e.g. +1 Armor ''or a ''+3 Arrow) do not require a formula or blueprint for anyone trained in artifice, as these are the simplest sort of enchantment. Other similar magical augmentations or strengthening charms may fall into this category as well, at the DM's discretion. If an artificer wishes to create an item from their own ingenuity, they may roll an Arcana check to determine if they can do so. This check represents knowledge of such an item and of the materials and techniques required to produce it. If the artificer has studied an example of the item, or has used it a fair amount in the past, they gain advantage on this Arcana check. The DC of the check itself is determined by the item's rarity, as shown in the table, or at the DM's discretion. On a success, the artificer is considered to know all requirements to craft the item, including an estimate of time needed. If the artificer fails the check, the knowledge of the item's creation is beyond them, and they must find or deduce the formula through research, or other means as the DM sees fit. If the artificer researches the item, they require a number of successes determined by the rarity, as shown in the table. Tools for Crafting Artificers can use Artificer's or Enchanter's supplies to imbue an enchantment into most items, but the process becomes a lot easier when also using specialized tools for the task at hand. All enchanted items require proficiency in Artificer's tools to create. At the DM's discretion, items may take longer to create if they are crafted using only this proficiency (instead of in conjunction with another proficiency, as shown on the table), or may be impossible to create at all without the assistance of another artisan trained in other tools. Whenever any artificer is crafting an item, it is possible to have assistants help with the creation, if they have proficiency in one of the tools needed. Refer to the table for suggestions as to which tools may be required for certain items. Note that the table is not perfect - if an artificer is crafting a wand made out of mithril, they may require Jeweler's or Tinker's tools. Supplies and Exotic Materials The artificer must gather the raw material necessary for the item, or purchase the base item itself. For example, if an artificer wishes to make a +2 Sword, they could either obtain the iron, leather and decorative elements needed to forge their own sword, or they could simply purchase a sword of sufficient quality from a smith. Note that low-quality items result in low-quality enchantments that may fail or in items that may break, so it is advisable to seek out material of excellent craftsmanship. At the DM's discretion, a powerful item may require the use of an exotic material, either collected from creatures or taken from areas charged with magical energy. Most common and uncommon magic items do not require them, though there are exceptions (such as a potion of hill giant strength). Items that don't require a formula to craft also don't require exotic material. Exotic materials can often be bought from alchemists or black market dealers, or (in some places) in magic item shops that specialize in artificer goods. Such items can also be harvested by hand (typically from freshly slain monsters), but in some cases this may require special containers to keep the items fresh or sealed. For example, elemental fire is a component in many items that are enchanted to produce fire damage: this is harvested on the Plane of Fire using an enchanted Stasis Flask, which most alchemists know how to produce, but must be prepared beforehand. Residuum The true fuel of any enchantment is residuum dust, discovered ages ago by forgotten alchemists. This substance is quite literally magic dust; the essence of magic distilled and crystallized into a physical form. It is most often traded as a lightweight, sparkling, silvery powder. The dust has about the same density as water, and a gram of dust is worth around 10,000 gp. Residuum can be found naturally as large, delicate crystalline formations in some locations of the Astral Sea, or it can be recycled from disenchanting (destroying) existing magical items. Due to its rarity and the fact that practically every sort of enchantment requires it, residuum is itself a currency throughout the Astral Reach. Its high cost-to-weight ratio and universal demand make it tradeable in any society that has some knowledge of enchantments. Its value in the major continents of the Reach is very consistent, so amounts of residuum are most often described in terms of their gold cost. When a magical item has an associated crafting cost in gold, that cost represents the cost of the residuum needed to complete the enchantment (and does NOT include the cost of any raw or exotic materials). When disenchanting a magical item, the item produces 20% of its crafting cost in residuum. Note that the process of disenchanting an item may require specific tools (such as a magical furnace) or a special ritual to complete. Facilities More on this later The Crafting Process In this system, crafting items is a time consuming task, but not nearly as much as in most rulesets. Most of the barrier to crafting an item is in the research required, exotic materials, and the residuum cost. Items require a number of hours of work determined by the DM, based loosely on the table shown here. Each time an artificer sits down to work on the object (at the DM's discretion) they may have to roll a check using the appropriate tool proficiency. The DC of each check is determined by the DM, and may vary depending on what stage of the crafting process the artificer is at, or the circumstances of the work. Successful completion of the item requires a net number of successes based on the item's rarity, also shown in the table. A failure on a check may mean a minor setback that causes a loss of a day's progress, or it might mean accidental destruction of the item. Items that Cast Spells If the enchantment an artificer is creating involves spellcasting, then the item must have each spell imbued into it by a caster who can cast the spell, once every day. This expends any material components and the appropriate spell slot, both of which are supplied by the caster. To avoid diffusion of the spell energy if the artificer pauses their work for a day or more, artificers place their unfinished spellcasting items into magical stasis. Category:Homebrew Rules Category:Rules